PALM BEACH GARDENS, FL. Back in March 2026, state inspectors ordered Great Greek Mediterranean Grill at 11300 Legacy Ave closed to the public after finding roach activity inside the restaurant, a finding serious enough to trigger an emergency shutdown order on March 9 with a vacate deadline of the following morning.
The closure was not the restaurant's first. State records show it was the second emergency shutdown in the facility's documented history, a fact that places the March incident inside a longer and more troubling pattern of repeated high-severity violations.
What Inspectors Found
Great Greek: Recent Inspection Record
On the day inspectors ordered the closure, March 9, the visit log shows 2 high-severity and 2 intermediate violations alongside the roach finding. The inspection conducted just one week earlier, on March 2, had already flagged 5 high-severity and 3 intermediate violations.
The restaurant was given until March 10 to vacate. A follow-up inspection on March 10 recorded zero high-severity and zero intermediate violations, and the facility was cleared to reopen that same day at 10:16 a.m.
The Violations
The most recent inspection data on record, from May 2026, shows four high-severity violations still active at the facility. Those violations include food contact surfaces not properly cleaned or sanitized, time as a public health control not properly used, no consumer advisory posted for raw or undercooked foods, and required procedures for specialized processes not followed.
The food contact surface violation is among the most common vectors for bacterial transfer in a commercial kitchen. Cutting boards, prep surfaces, and utensils that are not properly sanitized between uses carry bacteria from one food to the next without any visible sign that a transfer has occurred.
The time-as-public-health-control violation is more technical but equally serious. When a facility opts to use time rather than temperature to keep food safe, it must follow precise written procedures and discard food after a set window. When those procedures are not followed, food sits in the temperature danger zone, between 41 and 135 degrees, with no reliable safeguard against bacterial growth.
The absence of a consumer advisory for raw or undercooked foods is a direct risk to specific customers. Elderly diners, pregnant women, young children, and people with compromised immune systems rely on that posted notice to make informed decisions. Without it, they have no way of knowing a dish contains ingredients that carry elevated pathogen risk.
The specialized process violation flags a breakdown in procedures that govern techniques like smoking, curing, or reduced-oxygen packaging. These processes require written plans and precise controls because they can suppress the visible signs of spoilage while allowing dangerous bacteria to survive.
What These Violations Mean
Roach activity, the violation that triggered the March closure, is treated as an emergency condition under Florida food safety law because live roaches in a food service environment are active carriers of pathogens including Salmonella and E. coli. They move between waste areas and food surfaces continuously, and their presence in a kitchen means cross-contamination is not a theoretical risk. It is an ongoing one.
The combination of roach activity with the high-severity violations documented in the same period compounds that risk. Improperly sanitized food contact surfaces give any pathogen carried by pests a place to persist and multiply. Time abuse violations mean food in the temperature danger zone is not being tracked or discarded on schedule.
Together, these conditions describe a kitchen where multiple safeguards were failing at the same time, not a single isolated lapse.
The Longer Record
State records show 26 inspections at this location and 148 total violations accumulated over the facility's documented history. That volume, spread across more than two years of inspections, reflects persistent difficulty maintaining compliance rather than a single bad week.
The December 2024 inspection stands out in the record. Inspectors cited 11 high-severity and 1 intermediate violation in a single visit, the highest tally in any inspection on file for this facility. That visit came roughly three months before the March 2026 emergency closure.
The March 2 inspection, conducted just seven days before the closure order, had already produced 5 high-severity and 3 intermediate violations. Inspectors returned one week later and found conditions serious enough to shut the restaurant down.
After the March 10 clearance, inspections in May 2026 continued to turn up high-severity violations. The May 11 visit produced 8 high-severity and 3 intermediate violations. The May 12 follow-up still showed 4 high-severity violations unresolved.
The facility has now been through two emergency closures and 26 documented inspections. As of the most recent data on record, high-severity violations remained active at the site.